Dovetails made easier

[AlexS]

Nicely presented Alex!

I love the red nail varnish; what shade is it? Also, you have a clamp with a forked end. Do you find it has better holding power than a single foot clamp? What make is it and where did you get it?

That's not red nail polis, that's blood.
The clamps don't have a brand on them, but I bought them at Hare & Forbes pretty cheaply a couple of years ago. They seem to be reasonable quality, and often do away with the need for two clamps.

[Lignum]

That's not red nail polis, that's blood.

Gotta admire a man who bleeds for his craft

[vitto]

hi Derek
I follow you from very and do I make to you my compliments but do tell me because the things to you always come so simple?
ciao vittorio

[Simon2512]

I'm new to dovetails and have been practicing before I unleash myself on my tool cabinet project. It appears that my coping saw blade is much wider than my jap saw. As such, it is difficult to get the blade down the saw line to saw out the waste using the methods above. I thought about drilling a hole thru to waste and inseting the saw....is that a good option or can u get much narrower kerfed blades for the coping saw to match that of the dozuki??

[IanW]

I'm new to dovetails and have been practicing before I unleash myself on my tool cabinet project. It appears that my coping saw blade is much wider than my jap saw. As such, it is difficult to get the blade down the saw line to saw out the waste using the methods above. I thought about drilling a hole thru to waste and inseting the saw....is that a good option or can u get much narrower kerfed blades for the coping saw to match that of the dozuki??

Simon - good luck getting anything other than stock-standard coping saw blades anywhere convenient!

IMO, there would be little point in getting a blade fine enough to fit in the dozuki slot, because it would also have such fine teeth, it would take you half a day to cut out the waste in anything thicker than 1/8th veneer. What I do if the coping saw blade is wider than the kerf (which it always is when using my small d'tail saw, too) is cut across the waste at an angle, flaring out as you get near the bottom to cut a fat mm above the scribe line, til you meet the dovetail saw kerf. Then flip the saw & cut the remaining waste out. A bit more sawing than starting from within the dovetail saw kerf, but the coarser blade cuts very quickly.

It's not mandatory to saw out the waste - as I said before, some woods chisel out so nicely & crisply, I don't bother, & in any case the time saved by this method is often a bit illusory. If you count the time taken sawing & blade-flipping on wide boards, there's often not a lot gained! I find sawing helps most in softer woods like Hoop or Cedar. If you are confident with your ability to control the coping saw, & saw very close to the line, you can pare the remaining waste away with hand pressure (using a very sharp chisel), but if you have to bash the chisel, no matter how sharp it is, crushing of the fibres is likely, & you end up with big chunks falling out of the end grain.

Cheers,

[Simon2512]

Thanks Ian. I'll give that a go. I've had trouble with the end grain tearout when chopping them in practice despite paring back to the scribe line before the mallet action.

[Eldanos of KDM]

All good information Derek. I do a few things slightly differently:

I do all my laying-out by eye, including tail angle. A slight (and I mean barely perceivable) variation is part of what makes handmade dovetails a joy to behold.

I agree, Laying out too exactly can make it look like it was done with a machine. And we all know that's uncool

[Wongdai]

lol. I could only wish my handcut dovetails would look as though they were cut by a machine!

[Eldanos of KDM]

lol. I could only wish my handcut dovetails would look as though they were cut by a machine!

I'm sure you're getting there Clark! I got mine as perfect as I could, doing them as carefully as I could and taking my time, after that it was just practising and trying to find ways to do them quicker.
Over and over.
Not saying mine look as clean as machine made ones- Not even nearly, I'm just slowly getting more confident with them is all

[Claw Hama]

I was doing some yesterday cutting back a Tassie Blackwood TV cabinet, the Tassie Oak drawer bodies (17mm thick) were so hard it took too long with the fret saw and so opted for the chisel. I also use the chisel half way method as leant at school and have since seen Alan Peters do/did/doneRIP.
Ahh, the twisted blade, I have done this before too, I used a little scrap of wood, put a small cut in it with the saw before removing the blade and then use the little scrape with the cut to twist the blade.
Great thread guys and girls. Dovetails in a word..... practice.